The melancholy pasta

Where oh where are my colleagues? Must I face the Faculty Center alone? Eating whole grain pasta (that probably isn't*) is sad enough without the cloud of melancholy that comes from dining solo. Marinara sauce with chopped bell peppers helped a little, but what a gloomy end to the week. I could only imagine the witty conversation, the literary allusion, the professional pessimism that usually brightens my noon hour.

Until we meet again...


*OK, does anyone really believe that pasta is actually whole grain? It doesn't taste like any REAL whole grain pasta I've ever had. I call for an investigation.

Different Company, Different Conversation

Ate with Fink and Middleton, conversation was reminiscent of lunching with Greenman - far more intellectual, yet still entertaining.

Fink told tales of his AP past (a prelude to his talk with AP's Michael Giarrusso). Middleton and I nodded and laughed at appropriate moments.

Pepper steak is still not peppery enough, squash and tomatoes was almost all tomato juice. I need to order better. 

Post-lunch conversation with Sweetser leads me to believe we need another rule - Sweetser must comment, daily, "I can't believe you guys eat there."

Turkey

Ate a turkey reuben today, the first time I'd had one at The Eatery in a long time. Tasted turkey-like, with undertones of thousand island dressing, bread toasted a lovely shade of brown, just the right amount of sourkraut to give it that wang. All in all, quite good. Hume and I alone, grabbing a quick meal before a department thingy.

And to keep Karen Russell happy, the turkey was boneless. In fact, I think the turkeys are raised boneless -- just a quivering blob of turkeyness waiting for harvest. In Russell's perfect world, all meat is raised boneless. Jello meat.

A Magic Trick

A magic trick done with Chicken Supreme.
Since I can't figure out how to load it to blogger, go here.

A blog post about nothing

After miscelleneous discussion by Russell, Johnson and Hollander about children, science experiments, and tae-kwon do (said conversation driving Conrad from the table), Hollander revealed that he thinks a spotlight should shine upon him every time he walks through Southeast Clarke Park.

Hume is gonna be sorry she missed that one.

That, and the menu options of turkey with stuffing or country-fried steak. Unlike the children in Johnson's story, no one threw up.

Veggie Tales

I finally tried the veggie sandwhich today. Lots of crunch, maybe too much onion, coulda used more hummus, but overall not a bad thing to eat on a Lenten Friday. Could've been worse. Could've been humus on the bread instead of hummus.

Ate with Hume1, Russell, and pseudo-soon-to-be-but-not-quite-yet-telecom-department-head Hollifield. Fun topics included nursing homes, 50th birthdays, students who don't read their assignments, and the end of the human race.

Okay, I made the last one up, but it fits the rest of the list.

Johnson not present. Absence noted -- two more and he loses a letter grade.

1 Hume paid for her own lunch

Shameless plug

Check out that Bateman team:

Safe Kids Web site

YouTube videos

Hugh Martin: In a Pickle

In order to save money (surely not because he doesn't like the food), Dr. Hugh J. Martin packs a brownbag lunch several days a week. Just to be friendly, he decided to join a group of us at the Faculty Center today. Little did he know that he would end up paying for someone else's lunch.

It seems Dr. Hume could not afford the 99-cent stewed tomato over rice meal she ordered. (She attempts to mitigate this travesty by pointing out that she did provide 6 of the 7 cents tax.) Out of the sheer kindness of his heart, Dr. Martin fronted her the $1 she needed. Watching her try to count out pennies and nickels as the line formed behind her was just more than he could take.

On the bright side, since I don't eat pickles and not one but two-and-a-quarter were served with my grilled cheese sandwich, he was able to get a free pickle out of the deal.

Still, I predict it will be a cold day in hell before he follows Dr. Hume in line for lunch at the Faculty Center again.

An Odd Collection of Notes and Notables

What a strange lunch ... two new guests did not know we blog about lunch, while another regular mocked the usefulness of blogging ... sheesh ... 

Russell discussed, at not enough length, her disgust for chicken bones on a plate. Also that she will only eat filet because it has - you guessed it - no bones. (If I thought that would work at home, I would try it. My guess is I'd be told to eat more calamari ...)

I was warned, again, that the turkey tetrazini had set off another colleague's heart attack last year. Though it's commonly believed it was her dining companion more than the meal itself. 

And while we tried to maintain our habit of low conversation, discussion of what was blogable and what was not blogable turned into a ridiculously erudite conversation about literary authors and their editors. 

I blame Greenman for trying to raise the conversational bar. Bringing up Elmore Leonard, really, was that appropriate?

Georgian Chicken vs Chicken Supreme

Which chicken rules? Let the battle between Georgian Chicken (GC) and Chicken Supreme (CS) begin.

• One has Georgia in the name, but it's hard to beat Supreme (either as a godlike power or as group of three backup singers). Advantage CS
• Baked with decent seasoning (GC) versus cooked in some mysterious fashion and then poured over rice (CS). Advantage GC.
• GC is on Tuesday's menu. CS is offered on Wednesdays. Since I don't teach Tuesdays, Advantage GC.
• Looks like something you might want to eat (GC) versus something your kid erupted after suddenly getting the stomach flu (CS). Advantage GC
• Hot sauce easily added for additional flavor. Advantage CS

And the winner is ... Georgian Chicken!!!

Babies

Lunched today alone at The Eatery, sitting in the back reading the NYTimes and enjoying a plate of Georgian chicken, roasted potatoes, and baby lima beans.

In the old days, limas were allowed to grow to maturity and lead full lives on the open range. A little-known PETA video reveals how it's done today, the ripping of baby limas from their mothers. I'd post the video here but its contents are too disturbing. Plus it doesn't exist.

The food industry is full of such horrors. Baby back ribs, for example. Don't even try to picture how they get these. Some companies are smart. Early peas they call them, a euphemism for peas stripped out of their pods at a tender young age and dropped into boiling water, then squeezed into an uncomfortable can until someone buys them at Kroger.

My baby limas, by the way, were excellent.

No, I Don't Want to Eat Elsewhere ...

... but I was wondering if the LaFonda Dogs are still being sold up on Jackson Street. I need to shoot a quickie human interest piece, figured that might work.

Lunch with Hollander mostly (who, in Russell's absence, reminded me I am not tenured), Fink was there, briefly, with one of our visiting professionals. Talk ran to tornadoes and Mythbusters, of course.

Turkey with dressing (which was, as far as I could tell, a liquefied piece of corn bread) and carrots. Should have gone with the Country Fried Steak.

Pepper Steak and Peppery Conversation

Arrived late to fund Russell and Hollander already done, but with nothing to do they continued to converse as I ate. We talked about all the Finksters and how we could mess with their papers. Best suggestion: tell them all the comics need to be moved to A1. Dilbert for the business news, Doonsbury for the political coverage. 

Noted Hume's absence. Insinuated that she , or that if she were to  a lot of problems would disappear. Then Hollander brought up . We all laughed, somewhat uncomfortably.

Pepper steak needed more pepper.

Follow the Script!

There are rules when eating at the Faculty Center:

• Russell must remind Johnson that he doesn't have tenure.
• Hume must point out her "lovingly prepared" veggie sandwich
• Hollander must at some point make an off-color remark
• Johnson then points out we all followed the same script as before
• Rinse and repeat, as needed.

The Dawg Dish

In this world, there are people who have to eat food that we might consider fit for only a dog. Then there are people who to try to eat the Dawg Dish at the Faculty Center for lunch.

A little perspective never hurts.

Well, that was a cheery conversation ...

Lunch with Hollander and Fink. After a weekend of eating poorly, I ordered up the country fried steak, mashed potatoes and green beans. A nice melding of flavors. Meaning each kind of tasted like the other ...

Then we talked about dying newspapers. How the AP is coming back to the way it was years ago. And how newspapers were dying.

Maybe we looped back to that last thing two or twelve times ...

Lunch, Not Alone

Mocking others is a hobby of ours. Harassing them, too, if you were to hear all of the conversation.

And what's with Karen always pointing out that I'm the only one who's not tenured? Should I be nervous?

Beans & Rice

Ash Wednesday, no meat. Dog dish instead.

woof woof

The only thing missing is a time lapse video of me eating red beans and rice.

Lunch, Alone

Thick-cut turkey and Muenster on soft whole wheat with a little Duke's. I never thought whole wheat was overly hard, really, but okay. Some sourdough nuggets and, after the camera was turned off, an apple. (I just don't think eating an apple is visually appealing.)

Shot with the built-in camera on my iMac, time-lapsed in iMovie 06 (08 doesn't do that, why, Apple, why?).

Meat Loaf, but No Greens

In a rare, bold move ... I skipped the greens today. I cooked homemade greens last night for me and the kids (Edith at a meeting). Mine are much better than The Eatery's.

Yes, my kids eat greens. And asparagus, and shrimp stew, and boiled crabs, and broccoli, and a lot of other stuff. All it takes is patience and effort to create good eaters -- that and not taking them to the Faculty Center for lunch.